Epic Sciences announced today the appointment of Pascal Bamford, Ph.D. as vice president of product development. Dr. Bamford has more than 15 years of experience in developing complex, automated diagnostic systems for digital pathology. Prior to joining Epic Sciences, Dr. Bamford served as senior project leader for Advanced Staining Assays at Ventana Medical Systems, Inc., a member of the Roche Group. Dr. Bamford is recognized as a creative innovator and project leader with a successful track record of translating new technologies into high-impact products.

“Pascal’s impressive career is distinguished by his unique ability to solve multifaceted problems at the intersection of engineering, biology and commercial product development,” said Murali Prahalad, Ph.D., president and CEO of Epic Sciences. “At Epic, Pascal will apply his vision and experience to innovate and automate Epic’s circulating tumor cell technology platform. Our goal is to provide rapid detection of cancer and its genetic and molecular changes throughout a patient’s journey, from matching patients to therapies to monitoring for resistance, so the best treatment path can be chosen at every clinical decision point.”

“Since the beginning of my career, I have been passionate about making a lasting difference in helping those fighting cancer by developing precision diagnostic tools,” said Dr. Bamford, vice president of product development at Epic Sciences. “Epic’s technology is transformative in its capabilities to not only see, with incredible sensitivity and specificity, circulating tumor cells in the blood but also deliver ongoing, in-depth, single-cell protein expression and genomic analysis. I look forward to advancing Epic’s technology to close the information gap in the treatment roadmap for doctors and patients to better fight cancer at every step of the way.”

Dr. Bamford obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland, Australia, and researched how cancer-associated changes in DNA structure, detectable in digital images, could be used to automate the process of distinguishing cervical cancer from normal cells. His early career was spent developing automated cytology imaging systems at CSSIP in Australia in collaboration with Accumed International of Chicago. He subsequently took on the role of director of Imaging at MonoGen, where he developed an all-digital, microscopy-based, cervical cancer screening product, which was recognized as the first “killer app” for the field of digital pathology.

For the past five years at Ventana-Roche, Dr. Bamford has held various roles of increasing responsibility in research, digital pathology and assay development, working on fluorescence multiplexing imaging systems and driving several bright field IHC algorithm CE-IVD and 510(k) clearances. Most recently Dr. Bamford led the detection reagent development of Ventana’s next generation staining platform. He is the author of six patents and more than 18 scientific publications.

About Epic Sciences

At Epic Sciences, we develop clinically proven predictive tests to detect and monitor cancer at the individual cell level. With a proprietary rare-cell detection engine, we provide insights to clinical, biotech, pharmaceutical and academic teams on how cancer emerges, mutates and remits so they can make pivotal decisions at every point in patient treatment with greater certainty. Recognizing the unique nature of each person’s cancer, we offer truly personalized diagnostic tests, while being non-invasive for the patient.

We have developed the first clinically proven predictive test for metastatic castration-resistant prostrate cancer (mCRPC), the Epic AR-V7 test. Using the same rare-cell detection platform and Epic’s biobank of over 30,000 blood samples, each profiled with predictive biomarkers, we partner with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, major cancer centers, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pursue additional predictive tests for breast, ovarian, colon and other cancers and diseases. Our mission is to revolutionize cancer care and therapies to make them as precise, safe and life-sustaining as humanly possible.